JUSIPER

 
Still more evidence

Posted by Sini

That kids today dream of a much cooler world than ours.

A new nationwide survey of girls and boys found that a majority of children and youths in the United States have little or no interest with achieving leadership roles when they become adults, ranking "being a leader" behind other goals such as "fitting in," "making a lot of money" and "helping animals or the environment."

The study commissioned by the Girl Scouts of the USA and released today determined that three-quarters of African American girls and boys and Hispanic girls surveyed already identify themselves as leaders, a much larger group than white youths, about half of whom think of themselves this way.

The youths defined leaders as people who prize collaboration, stand up for their beliefs and values, and try to improve society. Girls in particular endorsed these approaches, although a majority of boys did, as well. Yet when asked in focus groups about leadership styles among adults, what they described was traditional top-down management.

Judy Schoenberg, research director for the Girl Scouts, said the youths in the survey "see a disconnect between what they aspire to and what is."

The survey comes amid a presidential campaign that has expanded the role models for leadership by providing, for the first time, the distinct possibility that a woman or an African American may become the country's leader. Still, that has not seemed to motivate many young people to aspire to leadership roles.

"The millennial generation has ambivalent, even negative, feelings about formal leadership," said Peter Levine, director of a nonpartisan research center at the University of Maryland that studies young people and civic involvement. "They prefer horizontal leadership in which everyone's a leader." [...]

Youths in the Girl Scouts study rated parents as very influential in helping them aspire to become and to become leaders -- more so than friends, coaches and celebrities, who captured about 10 percent of the vote. Mothers topped the role-model list with 81 percent of girls and 75 percent of boys.

This may help explain youths' reluctance to endorse traditional styles of leadership, Schoenberg said. Mothers, who were also surveyed in the poll, said that they want their daughters and sons to develop their talents. Leadership skills, if they happened, were a byproduct.

2:16 AM |